Where'd You Go, Bernadette: A Novel

Where’d You Go, Bernadette was such a fun and entertaining read! It has the perfect mix of humor, mystery, wit, and heart. The story is unique and keeps you guessing as you piece together what happened to Bernadette through emails, letters, and other documents. I found myself laughing out loud at several parts, while also becoming genuinely invested in the characters. It’s light enough to enjoy by the pool or on vacation, but still has enough depth to keep you engaged. If you’re looking for a book that’s quirky, clever, fast-paced, and thoroughly entertaining, this is a great choice. I flew through it and didn’t want it to end. Definitely one of those books that’s easy to recommend and perfect to toss into your beach bag or carry-on.

Where did you go, Bernadette, Maria Semple, 2012, Nonfiction,social status, love, emotional scars, 25.99, 978-0-316-20427-9. The book Where'd You Go, Bernadette is written by Maria Semple. The purpose of this book is to entertain. The thesis of this book is to not blame your worries and troubles on one thing or person or place. The theme of this book is to never give up, and to believe in yourself. The book is told from different character's perspectives; this is made possible because it is told by letters, emails, documents, reports and other correspondents. Because it is told by so many people, you can understand exactly what is going on in everyone's lives, it allows you understand whether the character's actions are valid or not. It either helps you relate to the people in the book or it makes you dislike them. At first I thought that Bee's parents agreeing to her request for the trip to Antarctica was unrealistic, but as I kept reading I realized that Bee deserved the trip. The characters in this book are three-dimensional, especially Bee, Elgie, Bernadette and Audrey Griffin. There was a lot of humor and wit in this book, the rivalry between Bernadette and the gnats (especially Audrey Griffin) was enough to make even the most serious person laugh or chuckle a bit. I enjoyed reading this book, it kept me engrossed in the plot. Where'd You Go, Bernadette is a page-turner. The quirky characters are really what made this book exciting and interesting. The ending of the book was kind of fast and strange, but I'm glad it ended the way it did. Ultimately I would recommend this book to anyone of my friends who just wanted an easy, good book to make them smile and wonder about what could possibly happen next.

I loved this book. It engaged me throughout and I hated to put it down. It is a comedy of manners, a parody of political correctness, a satire of the computer world of Microsoft and a laugh-out-loud look at Seattle. It is a wonder of a book and I can't say enough positive things about it. It is about Bernadette Branch, a Macarther Fellow in the past, her husband Elgie, a Microsoft Guru, and their daughter Bee, fifteen going on forty. Bernadette won her award for architecture but now her family lives in a former children's prison that is falling apart. Blackberry brambles are growing through the floor, there are rooms closed off because the floors are all mud and it is a general third world residence. The Branches, by the way, are quite rich so this is a true paradox. At one time Bernadette hoped to fix the place up but her plans never came to fruition. Bee goes to Galer School, a private school, and Bernadette hates the mothers of the children there. She calls them 'gnats'. She and Audrey, the mother of a psychopathic son, are especially at war. When one of Bernadette and Audrey's conflicts ends up in a tragedy worse than they had anticipated, everything escalates. Bee has been getting straight A's and she was told she could have anything she wanted if she finished middle school with perfect grades. She wants a trip to Antarctica and so the family plans this. Additionally, she has been accepted to Choate, an elite boarding school in the northeast. Bernadette had a terrible experience with her architecture in L.A. which caused the family to move to Seattle. Since then she has not done anything professional. She avoids people and, most of the time, lives in her airstream trailer which is on their property. Elgie is hardly ever home. He is a guru at Microsoft and a legend in the computer world, Bernadette is different but is she crazy? Bee doesn't think so. Her mother is her best friend. The gnats hate her and think she has a screw loose. You will have to read this book yourself to decide. It is an amazing feat of writing, composed of narrative, emails, faxes, and documents. All of these are composed in a way that tell the story of what leads to Bernadette's disappearance. This is one of the best books I've read this year and a unique and wonderful reading experience. Do yourself a favor and read this book.

I can't remember exactly where I heard about this book, but after reading through all the praise and accolade it received as well as the description of the story, I was desperate to get my hands on a copy. I ordered through Amazon and much to my dismay, shipping seemed to take forever. Needless to say when the book finally arrived, I dove right in. I was expecting humor, wit, charm, with all the laugh-out-loud moments you'd expect from a comedy mixed with all the light-hearted that-could-never-really-happen-but-somehow-I-now-believe-it-could charm I've grown to love and expect from all my favorite romantic comedies. The cover was cute and I was definitely all in. The first ten pages (or so it seemed) were filled with witty quotes and glowing reviews from pretty much everyone in the industry. The book started on a high note. The story was intriguing. There were some ridiculous moments that were definitely humorous, but I think you would be ill-informed to assume you were picking up a comedy in this book. The tone is light-hearted, which almost disguises the premise, which I would consider to be kind of depressing. I couldn't put the book down, but I think that was more because I was waiting for it to get amazing and not because I loved it and wanted more, more, more. When ordering this book, I fully intended to gush about it and lend it to all my friends and family. I kept reading on, waiting for the moment when this book went from okay to amazing and hilarious. Unfortunately, even as I turned the last page, I hadn't reached that point. The story is interesting, it definitely has promise. There are some parts that seemed long-winded and quite confusing. (Maybe I'll have to take a trip to Seattle before I can understand?) As I mentioned before the book has some segues into depressing territory, showcasing the fragility of relationships between family and friends and strangers and how quickly they can unravel. And, unrealistically, how they can knit themselves back together instantly with, for example, a life-changing adventure into uncharted waters. I don't know how else to categorize this type of not-tragic-but-still-sad literature but as "coming-of-age." (Whatever that means.) But all the books and movies in that category have the same human reality - the good, the bad, the ugly. I always associate 500 Days of Summer and The Perks of Being a Wallflower with the "coming-of-age" genre. Overall, I think I expected too much from this book, so I was probably doomed before I started reading. I am baffled by all the press and comments about how funny the story is. Of course it has its moments, but I was hardly "laughing-out-loud." Even after all my over-analyzing (or maybe under-analyzing?), it might be more beneficial to condense this review to just one word that I feel describes this book the most accurately... Meh.

I really liked this book, though I will admit it is not perfect. The story is mostly told through emails, letters, etc and has some surprising twists and turns, and definitely does not follow a predictable story arc. I found myself rooting for different endings at different times as the characters evolved. I think my favorite thing about this book is how the characters could move from being sort of irritating to endearing (and back) as the plot progresses. Also it deals with failure, loss, forgiveness and how things are not always as simple as they seem. Some of what happens in the book mirrors experiences I have had in my own life with loved ones who have experienced social anxiety as well as mental illness, and treats the topic with a refreshing amount of depth and understanding, so maybe that is why I liked it so much. Also, having lived in Seattle for awhile, I was able to appreciate the humor of the Seattle-bashing, while enjoying the irony that it came from the POV of a character who is in many ways the perfect example of a privileged, eco-friendly, standoffish Seattle-type. Some of the downsides (to me) were that everyone in the book seemed to be in the upper middle class and acted as if that was the only class in existence in Seattle. Also some character's motivations were not well developed, and one in particular has a sort of hard-to-believe change-of-heart in the middle of the novel. Anyways - all in all a surprisingly good and relatively easy read. I will end this review now as I have to go call a "blackberry abatement specialist." Later.

"Where'd You Go Bernadette" is a very stealthy book of ideas and insights, wrapped in a delectable froth of humor, nonsense, mystery and suspense. Tucked into that enviable combination is a moving story of unconditional love between parent and child, and a surprisingly sure and intimate portrait of what it looks and feels like when someone loses touch with their central identity. All in a book that you could cheerfuly knock back as easy beach reading. A truly terrific book. So many others here have already described the plot better than a back cover summary could do, so I won't duplicate their efforts but will just skip to my reactions to the writing and the story. It took me a while to decide whether Bernadette Fox was a contemptible, self-absorbed elitist with epic anger management issues, or my new hero. By the end of the book (okay, midway) I'd concluded she's probably not quite either, but I was leaning very heavily toward the latter. I started out feeling a teensy bit defensive and offended, and trying to figure whether I was supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy in Bernadette's world. Then I decided I didn't care, and enjoyed the ride. As a parent who once very deliberately chose a "Subaru school" over a "Mercedes school" (as the socially insecure fundraisers for Bernadette's daughter, Bee's, private school characterize them ), I found myself alternately bristling at and howling with empathic glee over Semple and Bernadette's scorn for the ideas of community, and the more mindless examples of PCism and the more judgmental forms of ersatz earth-motherhood. Even in the clutches of what turns out to have been a long, slow free-fall of existential crisis, depression, anxiety, neuroses and agoraphobia, reclusive Bernadette is smarter, braver, more creative, more honest, more demanding of integrity, more nurturing, funnier and MUCH more fun than any of the other moms at school. She also has a distinctly individualistic and social Darwinist world view that is not always compassionate (a term Bernadette scorns, apparently confusing it with weakness, fuzzy-headednes or pandering) or altogether likeable (especially in her crazier, more bitterly misanthropic moments, even if these are very funny), but for the most part it's highly principled and very frequently right on. Agree or disagree with Bernadette, love her or loathe her, if she doesnt make you stop and think, you've missed something. Sample's and Bernadette's championship of traditional education, hard and fast objective standards, self-reliance, individual creativity and the radical idea that it is legitimate to treat extraordinarily talented contributors to society (or a company) as superior to those of mediocre ability will ring a bell with those who have read Aym Rand's "The Fountainhead," and presumably it's no coincidence that Bernadette is an iconoclastic architect. Fortunately for all of us, Bernadette is more three-dimensionally human, more vulnerable, mouthier and infinitely more fun than Howard Roarke. Unfortunately for her, she's even less suited to live in a world that contains other people than Roarke is. When Bernadette's overly withdrawn and idiosyncratic world collides disasterously with the busy-body, run of the mill, overly interventionist world around her, something has to go -- and it turns out to be Bernadette. This epistolary style book is a crazy, outsized, hilarious romp composed of emails between snooty and self-deluded mothers at the private school, said mothers and "blackberry abatement specialists," Bernadette and the India-based e-personal assistant that she has hired for 75 cents per hour to make her dentist appointments, old newspaper stories, excerpts from a TEDTalk by Bernadette's software rockstar husband, police reports, ship's logs, school news bulletins, parent communications from a PTSD specialist, FBI profiles, hospital bills, apocalyptic weather reports; you name it, all tied together with interpolations by Bernadette's very poised 14 year old daughter, Bee. Bee is probably the only reliable narrator in the book, and she's a lovely creation: smart, motivated, aware, with a highly developed BS meter, but warm, enthusiastic, full of goofy inside jokes, and open to wonder, surprise and pain despite her maturity. Bee is at once a matter of fact, irreverent and deeply sympathetic guide through the events that lead to her mother's disappearance. Ultimately it is the laser -like focus of mother and daughter on each other that propels the story, and gives coherence to Bernadette's seemingly fractured character. Even when you don't know whether or not you should be pulling for Bernadette, you know you are pulling for Bee -- which is perhaps what makes this otherwise philosophically complex book an easy, straight- forward read that you won't want to put down.

A synopsis: Things Going Against Bernadette Fox: A blossoming career in architecture that ended in her neighbor bulldozing down her home. A misguided real-estate transaction in Seattle that saddled her family in a home rotting from both the inside and out. A mudslide that pours from her yard downhill into her neighbor’s home, threatening the mental stability of at least thirty kindergartners. Elgin Branch, her Microsoft guru of a husband, who rarely departs the confines of Bill Gates’ campus, leaving Bernadette alone, unsupervised, and decompensating. A botched intervention by her husband, his lover/admin assistant, FBI agents, and Seattle’s finest. The gnats, otherwise known as the other mothers at her daughter’s school. A promise made to her fourteen-year old daughter, Bee, which originated as a feeble attempt to ward off the acquisition of a unicorn and ended with a demand for a family cruise to Antarctica. Bernadette’s paralyzing fear of motion sickness, confinement with strangers, exposure to some of the most turbulent seas in the world, and socialization. Her employment of a personal assistant, Manjula, who works from India for seventy-five cents an hour. India is code name for the Russian Mafia. Bernadette’s inability to take anybody else’s crap. Things Going For Bernadette Fox: Her daughter, whom is the only person who never gives up hope. Good fashion sense (with the exception of a fishing vest). Her willingness to try new things, like Haldol. Abundant Energy. Loves takeout food and isn’t afraid to use it. Knows every word of every Beatle’s song. Can recognize a gnat when she sees one. Spunk. A husband who loves her – but just needs their lives to fall apart before he remembers how much. Her dog, Ice Cream. My Review: WHERE’D YOU GO BERNADETTE is as eccentric as Bernadette Fox herself. Much of the novel is written in the form of correspondence between a zany cast of characters: emails, snail mail, hand-written notes, and memos. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a writer so clever as to be able to weave vivid and powerful character development into the context of notes, but somehow Maris Semple pulls it off. Unlike most books, I didn’t have a mental image of what each character looked like, but I knew each character in a much deeper sense. Taking a step back, much of the plot is extremely outlandish and implausible. I say that not as a criticism, but a profound compliment. Ms. Semple’s writing is so addictive that no matter how preposterous things became, I found myself transported into a world where I no longer cared if things were logical or likely. I simply needed to know what happened next. I can’t end this review without divulging how much I identified with Bernadette. Although I might not give Indian strangers access to all of my financial records, I wouldn’t hesitate to point out a gnat when I saw one – I did so last night, as a matter of fact. I commend Bernadette for realizing early on that bullpoop rules are for people full of bullpoop themselves. My hats off to her for being brave enough to buck the system. Most of all, I stand in awe of her for having the guts/insanity/wisdom to walk away, maybe even run away, before she lost herself to the monsters. Rating: ★★★★★ A bit about Maria Semple: Her novel, WHERE’D YOU GO BERNADETTE, is on my all-time favorite book list. Okay, that’s about me, but it’s about me bragging about her, so it’s indirectly about her. She once lived in Aspen, Colorado. From the viewpoint of a Colorado Native, that’s pretty cool. Even though I can’t afford the gum in Aspen, it’s still pretty cool. Ms. Semple has written for some really popular television shows, including Beverly Hills 90210, Mad About You, and Arrested Development. I wonder if Aaron Spelling ever asked her to punish Shannen Doherty by giving her crappy lines? In addition to WHERE’D YOU GO BERNADETTE: A NOVEL, Ms. Semple also wrote THIS ONE IS MINE: A NOVEL, in 2008. Five years after being published, THIS ONE IS MINE still ranks in the top 50 on Kindle. Outstanding!

Book Review - Where'd You Go Bernadette By Maria Semple Book Review - Where'd You Go Bernadette By Maria Semple Where'd You Go, Bernadette has been extensively reviewed by dozens of book critics for newspapers and magazines, as well as almost 1200 readers and others on Amazon. In characterizing the book, reviewers and critics have described it as, "utterly delightful, inventive, quirky, fresh, smart, intelligent, zany, witty, comic satire, and crazy." My favorite descriptions include adverbs such as divinely, achingly, outrageously, scathingly, charmingly, and wickedly FUNNY. Yes, the author, Maria Semple, is a creative and gifted writer, but I didn't find this book all that funny. This book uses emails, letters, faxes, bills, reports, and almost any form of written information and/or communication to develop the plot and move the story forward. I admit, I read the first section rather casually. Later, when I picked up my Kindle to continue, I had to read the whole section again as I was unable to place all the characters. The problem with this style of narrative is that the emails, letters, etc. have the same voice (the author's) despite (in the book) being written by different characters. It's hard for an author to write letters to a daughter from her mother or emails between friends and be able to define their personalities in a different narrative voice. All sound like the same person. And, as I read most of the lengthy correspondence, it struck me as "stream of consciousness writing"―meaning anything that comes to mind (I call it ranting and raving about unconnected things). Semple obviously has a talent for writing this way with wit and sarcasm, although stream of consciousness can get tedious. The main characters are Bernadette and Elgin Branch and their 14-15 year old daughter, Bee―named Balakrishna at birth by her mother. The setting is Seattle where Microsoft rules. Despite the community of geniuses and money, Bernadette believes it is a city of nerds and other mostly stupid and small-minded people. Twenty years ago Bernadette won the MacArthur genius award for architecture when she designed and built a house in Los Angeles called the Twenty-Mile House using only the materials that could be found no more than twenty miles from the building site. After it was completed and sold she was traumatized by what happened to it. Now, she hates living in Seattle and has pretty much withdrawn from life. Luckily she hires a person in India, Manjula Kapoor, for 75 cents an hour, to take care of everything for her via email. However, a virtual person is not always what they seem. Bernadette's behavior gets so strange that either she has Asberger's syndrome (my diagnosis) or is believed to be mentally unstable. Elgin is also extremely gifted and engrossed in his work as a VP for Microsoft. While living in Los Angeles, his computer animation company was bought by Microsoft and they moved to Seattle. Elgin's company is the highest priority at Microsoft and he is "team leader" to 250 employees working on a project called Samantha 2. His new admin, Soo-Lin Lee-Segal, is a single, divorced mother with two children in the same school as Bee. She participates in a Victims Against Victimhood group that she writes about in her emails. Bee was born with a heart defect that required several years of treatment and many operations when she was a baby. Bernadette stayed with her at the hospital during all that time. Now, Bee is an eighth grader at the private Galer Street School where she is an all A student. She also scores high in "grit and poise" according to school tests. She is smart, fun, and understanding of all her mother's quirks and antics. When her mother disappears, Bee is convinced Bernadette will be found as she knows her mother would not permanently leave her. Other correspondents in the story include Audrey Griffin, a close neighbor, and the mother of a boy in Bee's class at Galer. Audrey and Soo-Lin (Elgin's admin) are friends. Their emails and other actions involve events that affect the whole Branch family. The trip to Antarctica is the most interesting and also painful part of the story. Bee chose the trip because they were studying it in school. It was her reward for getting all A's. The descriptions of the water, the icebergs, the land, the cold weather, the whales, seals and penguins are great. It is the trip that concludes the story, but the ending is unknown. Why do current authors leave their readers with so many unanswered questions? I guess It's like writing a book review; they don't want to reveal too much information, or maybe they just don't know.

Bernadette's handwriting letter for Bee (final) made me cry. Bernadette & Bee might represent the author's experience. So each character is vivid in description ( Email, Document, and Report.. etc) )as if they were actually existing. It might be magnificent adventure for the family that involved destruction and recreation. Bee was hurt. But she could be stronger in Antarctica going through her adventure to search her selfish mother. Highly recommended.

I loved it! Bernadette is witty and eccentric and absolutely fabulous! And I loved the part on the South Pole.

Read it!

Eu estou apaixonada por esse livro, me identifiquei muito com a bernadette fox, e estou muito ansiosa pro filme que vai ter a cate blanchett

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